West Ham United F.C. season 2006-07

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[edit] Review

Former West Ham player Carlos Tevez

The team started the 2006-2007 campaign brightly, but slipped down the table due to off the field distractions. West Ham were knocked out from UEFA Cup by Italian Serie A side Palermo (0-1 and 0-3) and saw themselves dragged into the relegation zone.

Eventually an Icelandic consortium, led by Eggert Magnússon, bought the club on 26 November 2006.^[1] Following a poor run of form leaving the club in 17th position (despite the signing of big name players like Javier Mascherano and Carlos Tévez, who both failed to perform to expectation for much of the season), the new owners sacked Alan Pardew,^[2] replacing him with former West Ham player Alan Curbishley^[3] who had recently ended a 15-year spell in charge of Charlton. Curbishley's first game was at home against Manchester United that the team won 1-0. However, The Hammers then drew at Craven Cottage in their next game and continued to struggle, being subsequently trounced 6-0 by newly promoted side Reading, and knocked out of the FA cup by the rock bottom team Watford. An end-to-end thriller at home to Spurs ended with West Ham losing 4-3 in the last seconds of the game having been 3-2 in front with minutes to play, but the bright performance signified a change in form.

At the same time the signings of Mascherano and Tévez were being investigated by the Premier League, who were concerned that details regarding the transfers had been omitted from official records. Also, whether or not the influence of MSI (led by Kia Joorabchian) breached Premier League rules regarding third party ownership of players (rules U.18 and B.13^[4]) came into question. The media at this time touted the idea Tevez's contract could be terminated, possibly resulting in a deduction of points for playing an "ineligible" player (despite Premier League statements to the contrary).^[5] On April 27, 2007, West Ham pleaded guilty and were handed a record £5.5 million fine by the Premier League. The club did, however, avoid a points deduction. Liverpool's signing of Mascherano was investigated and he was cleared to play after a 2 week delay.

Following on from this event the Wigan Athletic chairman Dave Whelan threatened legal action supported by other relegation threatened sides including Fulham and Sheffield Utd; "This is a very serious offence West Ham committed...They broke the law, told blatant lies and should have got a 10-point penalty. If we can sue West Ham or the Premier League, I am sure that will happen."^[6] whilst manager Paul Jewell suggested League officials had intimated they wished to see them relegated. West Ham defeated relegation rivals Wigan Athletic 3-0 at the JJB Stadium and in doing so drew equal to them on points. They subsequently went on on to beat Bolton 3-1 and ultimately escaped relegation by winning seven of their last nine games including a 1-0 win over Arsenal, and on the last day of the season defeating newly crowned League Champions Manchester United 1-0 to finish outside the relegation zone in 15th.

[edit] Current squad

As of 13 May 2007.

No.	Player	Pos	Eur Apps	Eur Gls	Lge Apps	Lge Gls	FAC Apps	FAC Gls	LC Apps	LC Gls	Tot Apps	Tot Gls	Date Signed	Previous Club
First XI (Most appearances)
21	Robert Green	GK	-	-	26	-	-	-	1	-	27	-	16 August 2006	Norwich
18	Jonathan Spector	RB	1	-	17 (8)	-	1 (1)	-	-	-	19 (9)	-	15 June 2006	Manchester United
3	Paul Konchesky	LB	2	-	22	-	-	-	0 (1)	-	24 (1)	-	5 July 2005	Charlton Athletic
4	Danny Gabbidon	CB	2	-	18	-	1	-	1	-	22	-	5 July 2005	Cardiff City
5	Anton Ferdinand	CB	1	-	31	-	1	-	1	-	34	-	14 December 2002	Academy
17	Hayden Mullins	CM	-	-	20 (9)	2	1	1	1	-	23 (9)	3	23 October 2003	Crystal Palace
15	Yossi Benayoun	RM	1 (1)	-	25 (4)	3	1	-	-	-	27 (5)	3	16 July 2005	Racing Santander
20	Nigel Reo-Coker	CM	2	-	35	1	1	-	1	-	39	1	22 January 2004	Wimbledon
25	Bobby Zamora	CF	1 (1)	-	27 (5)	11	1 (1)	-	1	-	30 (7)	11	2 February 2004	Tottenham Hotspur
32	Carlos Tévez H.O.Y.	CF	2	-	19 (7)	7	1	-	-	-	22 (7)	7	31 August 2006	Corinthians
11	Matthew Etherington	LM	0 (1)	-	24 (3)	-	0 (1)	-	0 (1)	-	24 (6)	-	4 August 2003	Tottenham Hotspur
Players with 10+ starting appearances
10	Marlon Harewood	CF	1 (1)	-	19 (13)	3	-	-	1	1	21 (14)	4	25 November 2003	Nottingham Forest
29	Lee Bowyer	RM	2	-	18 (2)	-	-	-	-	-	20 (2)	-	8 June 2006	Newcastle United
6	George McCartney	LB	-	-	16 (6)	-	2	-	1	-	19 (6)	-	8 August 2006	Sunderland
19	James Collins	CB	1	-	16	-	-	-	-	-	17	-	5 July 2005	Cardiff City
1	Roy Carroll	GK	2	-	12	-	2	-	-	-	16	-	15 June 2005	Manchester United
7	Christian Dailly	D/M	-	-	10 (4)	-	2	-	1	-	13 (4)	-	17 January 2001	Blackburn Rovers
2	Lucas Neill	RB	-	-	11	-	1	-	-	-	12	-	22 January 2007	Blackburn Rovers
24	Mark Noble	CM	-	-	10	2	1	1	-	-	11	3	1 July 2003	Academy
13	Luis Boa Morte	LM	-	-	8 (6)	1	2	-	-	-	10 (6)	1	5 January 2007	Fulham
Other players with appearances
12	Carlton Cole	CF	1 (1)	-	5 (12)	2	2	1	-	-	8 (13)	3	5 July 2006	Chelsea
33	Nigel Quashie	CM	-	-	7	-	1	-	-	-	8	-	8 January 2007	West Brom
(16)	Javier Mascherano	CM	2	-	3 (2)	-	-	-	-	-	5 (2)	-	31 August 2006	Corinthians
27	Calum Davenport	CB	-	-	5 (1)	-	-	-	-	-	5 (1)		18 January 2007	Tottenham Hotspur
8	Teddy Sheringham	CF	0 (1)	-	4 (13)	2	0 (1)	-	0 (1)	-	4 (16)	2	14 July 2004	Portsmouth
14	John Pantsil	RB	-	-	3 (2)	-	0 (1)	-	1	-	4 (3)	-	1 August 2006	Hapoel Tel Aviv
(2)	Tyrone Mears	RB	1	-	3 (2)	-	-	-	-	-	4 (2)	-	6 July 2006	Preston North End
35	Matthew Upson	CB	-	-	2	-	-	-	-	-	2	-	31 January 2007	Birmingham
37	Kepa Blanco	CF	-	-	1 (7)	1	-	-	-	-	1 (7)	1	23 January 2007	on loan from Sevilla
26	Shaun Newton	M	-	-	0 (3)	-	1 (1)	-	-	-	1 (4)	-	10 March 2005	Wolves
28	Kyel Reid	LM	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	1	-	1 July 2004	Academy
Players without appearances
9	Dean Ashton	CF	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	23 January 2006	Norwich
22	Tony Stokes	M	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1 July 2005	Academy
23	Jimmy Walker	GK	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	10 June 2004	Walsall
30	James Tomkins	CB	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1 July 2005	Academy
31	Marek Štěch	GK	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	31 August 2006	Sparta Prague
-	Hogan Ephraim	M	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1 July 2004	Academy
-	Yaniv Katan	CF	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	3 January 2006	Maccabi Haifa